Meet Little Stories

"Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow."

-Anthony J. D'Angelo

Meet Jackie

Hi, I’m Jackie

I love my Labradors, even when they bark. Mountain biking is the only thing that makes me feel like my 7 year old self. Floating on the water is the best way to spend a summer day. Inside jokes kill me, it’s all in the timing. I am obsessed with oat milk chai lattes, it’s the only thing I order at a coffee shop, I am that predictable. On dreary rainy days, you will find me tucked into my chair wearing a blanket with my nose stuck in a book that I can’t put down. I have an obsession with learning deeply about topics that interest me, always searching for the "why". I love teaching and sharing my passions with others. I relish deep conversations, talking through feelings, connecting with others, and spending time lying under a tree alone with my thoughts. I am thankful for my family and our ups and downs.

I believe that childhood is precious and should be protected, it is gone in a blink. Playing outside-and in the dirt-fosters creativity, agility and a sense of self. Children are not small adults. Infants are born as amazingly capable beings and deserve more credit. Parenting is hard work and support is necessary to thrive. Play is the most important gift we can offer our children, if it isn't fun we-the adults-are doing it wrong.

About Little Stories

Jackie, is a licensed and certified Speech Language Pathologist (CCC-SLP), Feeding Specialist and Certified Lactation Counselor (CLC-currently working toward an IBCLC). She has extensive experience working with infants and young children since 2006. Starting her professional experience in the school system, she quickly moved to an early intervention focused clinic and onto ABA clinics, outpatient and home health settings. Finding that her passion lies in working with families as a holistic unit and not just the child. She has a rich focus on attachment, supporting parents to connect with their children, building intrinsic motivation for learning in her therapy strategies and parent support interventions. She has been focused on feeding since 2014, and has since niched into the world of infant feeding, swallowing and pediatric feeding disorders as her biggest passion.

She loves learning and connecting the dots with her patients and spends a lot of time diving into rabbit holes obsessively learning everything she can to better serve her clients and their families. She has several advanced continuing education courses in dysphagia (Swallowing disorder), pediatric feeding disorders, sensory processing, oral facial myology and tethered oral tissues (TOTs), as well as a certification in the Tummy Time! Method.

Over the years of working with tiny humans, many with very complex birth stories and medical complications, Jackie has learned something from each one that has directly impacted her techniques, honed her patience, expanded her empathy and reminded her of the importance of staying fun and childlike. Each child has left a mark of her heart and in the grand scheme of her life, they are her little stories. 

Many of the families Jackie has worked with experienced an unexpected birth story, many spending time in the NICU, coming home with a host of unwelcome complications that impacted their lives on so many levels, from a scary diagnosis, feeding tubes, to poor weight gain, developmental delays and oral aversions. Wading into the world of medical complexities, so many families are dazed and confused and lack control in how they wanted to parent and struggle to find their way through their new world of therapy. Focusing on each family, Jackie helps them to find ways to take back a bit of what they lost, often starting with the Little Stories they tell themselves. “I am failing my baby, I can’t even feed her”, “Every time I look at that tube, I feel like I failed”, “I can’t help but compare him with my friends kids and just see how far behind he is and think it’s all my fault”. Those Little Stories of failure and fear can derail an intention or be the difference in persevering through a hard place to find what success actually looks like in the small things. There is power in the Little Stories we tell ourselves.

Finding support can be hard, especially in the world of feeding. There is a lot of confusion about who to refer to, how to find a feeding specialist, knowing how to ask the right questions to actually get the help that is needed. Jackie created Little Stories to be able to offer direct support to families, by going straight to the source, rather than bouncing around from one provider to the next, getting conflicting answers, or falling into a hole created by inefficient health systems and lack of provider knowledge. Feeding is such a big part of our lives and includes so much more than nutrition and weight gain. It’s the function of our mouths, the need and desire to be fed, to feel satisfied, to feel socially connected by the meals we share with others, and for our self care for the rest of our lives. If you are searching for help, connect with Little Stories today.  No story is too little to share. 

Education & Training

  • Bachelors Degree in Communicative Disorders California State University, Fullerton

  • Masters Degree in Communicative Disorders California State University, Long Beach

  • Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC-SLP) from the American-Speech-Language-Hearing-Association (ASHA)

  • Certified Lactation Counselor (CLC) from the Academy of Lactation Policy and Practice (ALPP)

  • Student for International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC)-Coming soon Fall 2024

  • Over 500 completed hours in lactation/breastfeeding education and internship via Pathway 3 (IBCLE)

  • Tummy Time Method! Certification, created by Michelle Emmanuel

  • Sensory Integration/Ayres Sensory Integration Certificate from University of Southern California (USC)

  • 3 ACE Awards for Continuing Education from ASHA. Completion of 70 hours for each award-August 2021, September 2023, May 2024

  • Over 180 Hours of education in Feeding, Swallowing and Oral Facial Myology

  • Expert Witness in trial case Summer 2024.

  • My practice has been shaped by the following Courses: DIRFloortime, Attachment Focused Therapy, Feed the Peds, Talk Tools, Sensory Motor Approach to Therapy Individuals: Carol Westby, Diane Bahr, Catherine Watson Genna, Catherine Shaker, Erin Sundseth Ross, Joan Arvedson, Lori Overland, Robyn Merkel-Walsh

  • Affiliations: